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Does the Church Have the Answer?
The gay marriage issue has been headline news across North America and on other continents. Even the acceptance of gay clergy has been widely noted in both secular and Christian media outlets.
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In November 2003, a part of the Episcopal Church voted to ordain a gay bishop. Thus, the world saw part of the Church now condoning homosexual behavior.5
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On March 18, 2004, the Pacific Northwest Conference of the United Methodist Church in America supported a lesbian pastor. Once again, the world looked on as a large denomination legitimized homosexual behavior.6
As part of the public debate on the gay marriage issue, many Church leaders have been interviewed on national TV programs and asked to share their position on this topic. While the majority of Church leaders have been speaking against gay unions and have been defending marriage as being between one man and one woman, many of these same Church leaders have not been able to adequately defend their position.
One Christian leader was interviewed on MSNBC-TV and was asked about the gay marriage issue. The interview went something like this:
TV host: “Did Jesus deal directly with the gay marriage issue?”
Christian leader: “No, but then Jesus didn’t deal directly with the abortion issue or many other issues. . . .”
This is such a disappointing response. A proper response could have been such a powerful witness—not only to the interviewer but to the potential millions of viewers watching the news program, so people could understand why this Christian leader opposed gay marriage.
The same Christian leader appeared on CNN-TV doing an interview that, in part, went something like the following:
Interviewer: “Why are you against gay marriage?”
Christian leader: “Because down through the ages, culture after culture has taught that marriage is between a man and a woman.”
We believe this kind of answer actually opens the door to gay marriage! How? Because it basically says that marriage is determined by law or opinion.
So, why is it that we don’t see many Christian leaders giving the right sorts of answers? I think it’s because the majority of them have compromised with the idea of millions of years of history, as well as evolutionary beliefs in astronomy, geology, and so on. As a result, the Bible’s authority has been undermined, and it’s no longer understood to be the absolute authority.7
Gay Marriage—Is Evolution the Cause?
After reading explanations from Answers in Genesis such as those above, some critics have concluded that we are saying that belief in millions of years or other evolutionary ideas is the cause of social ills like gay marriage. This is not true at all.
It is accurate to say that the increasing acceptance of homosexual behavior and gay marriage has gone hand in hand with the popularity and acceptance of millions of years and evolutionary ideas. But this does not mean that every person who believes in millions of years/evolution accepts gay marriage or condones homosexual behavior.
What does the Bible says about homosexual behavior and gay marriage? Study the following verses:
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Genesis 2:18–25
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Leviticus 18:22
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Mark 10:6
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Romans 1:26–27
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1 Corinthians 6:9–10
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1 Timothy 1:9–10
But the more people (whether Christian or not) believe in man’s ideas concerning the history of the universe, regardless of what God’s Word appears to be plainly teaching, the more man’s fallible ideas are used as a basis for determining “truth” and overriding the Bible’s authority.
People need to understand that homosexual behavior and the gay marriage controversy are ultimately not the problems in our culture, but are the symptoms of a much deeper problem. Even though it’s obvious from the Bible that homosexual behavior and gay marriage are an abomination (Romans 1 and other passages make this very clear), there is a foundational reason as to why there is an increasing acceptance of these ills in America and societies like it.
Cultures in the West were once pervaded by a primarily Christian worldview because the majority of people at least respected the Bible as the authority on morality. It needs to be clearly understood that over the past 200 years the Bible’s authority has been increasingly undermined, as much of the Church has compromised with the idea of millions of years (this began before Darwin) and has thus begun reinterpreting Genesis. When those outside the Church saw Church leaders rejecting Genesis as literal history, one can understand why they would have quickly lost respect for all of the Bible. If the Church doesn’t even believe this Book to be true, then why should the world build its morality on a fallible work that modern science supposedly has shown to be inaccurate in its science and history?
The Bible has lost respect in people’s eyes (both within and without the Church) to the extent that the culture as a whole now does not take the Bible’s morality seriously at all. The increasing acceptance of homosexual behavior and gay marriage is a symptom of the loss of biblical authority, and is primarily due to the compromise the Church has made with the secular world’s teaching on origins.
Mocking the Bible
For example, consider the following. A New Orleans newspaper printed a commentary entitled “In Gay Rights Debate, Genesis Is Losing.”8 The column pointed out (correctly) that God intended marriage to be between one man and one woman. The writer even quoted Genesis 2:24, which declares, “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave to his wife and they shall be one flesh.”
The author then, mockingly, wrote, “Ah, Genesis. Heaven and earth created in six days, a serpent that talks, and a 600-year-old man building an ark. Just the guide we need to set rational policy.”
This secular writer recognized that the literal history of Genesis was the basis for the belief that marriage is one man for one woman. However, by mocking the Genesis account (just as many church leaders effectively do when they reinterpret Genesis 1–11 on the basis of man’s fallible ideas), the writer removed the foundations upon which the institution of marriage stands. This opens the door to gay marriage or anything else one might determine about marriage.
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